Prez calls for affordable, effective facilities in villages

Dhaula (Har), Jun 2 (PTI) Affordable and effective infrastructural facilities should be created in villages so that youths do not have to migrate to cities for work, President Pranab Mukherjee said today.

Making a clarion call for the development of rural India, he said the SmartGram initiative was a step in this direction.

The president was here to lay the foundation stone of a Drivers Training Institute and a Secondary School under the SMARTGRAM Initiative. Three new Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKKs) at Mahendragarh, Ambala and Palwal were also inaugurated.

"Our villages not only have the capacity to develop but are also eager for development. If we keep moving ahead in this manner, the day is not far when our youth would not need to leave villages for cities in search of better avenues.

"Good and affordable health services would be available for all and the youth would get training and employment in the vicinity of villages itself," he said.

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, who was also present at the occasion, talked about how cab aggregators Ola and Uber have put the demand of 3 lakh drivers before the Centre.

"People have often questioned the existence of the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry. They fail to understand the meaning of skills. A skill is something that makes your life kaushal, saral, sundar (adept, easy and beautiful).

"Our job is not just to provide skills to a person, but also make him excel at it. For instance, we not just need drivers who can ferry passengers from one place to another, but also know about digital payments and can speak in English so that they can reach out to a wide strata of people," Rudy said.

The president further said when the SmartGram initiative was started on July 2 last year, he was sure that the work which had been done to make Presidents Estate a Smart Township could be replicated in villages as well.

With the help of the Haryana government, Rashtrapati Bhavan selected five villages and many initiatives were taken for their development. Keeping in view the success achieved in the five villages, the program has now been extended to 100 villages.

Highlighting Haryanas achievements in developing its villages, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the state has taken steps to ensure that all village heads are literate and have no criminal record. Proper sanitation and electricity connections in villages are other areas of focus.

"Plans are also afoot to construct colleges for girls within every 20 km in the villages," he said.